An imaging process utilizing a device which can electronically read typewritten or printed pages and translate the characters into codes which can then be saved as a text file and imported into a word processing program, eliminating the need for keyboarding. Originally, OCR devices required special machine-oriented OCR fonts, but as scanners and scanning software increased in sophistication, many other types of fonts (almost any printed typeface) can be recognized. OCR scanning is often performed using special OCR Paper, specially manufactured to be as free from dark spots or blemishes as possible, as any non-text markings would register as a character. An early form of OCR was called magnetic ink character recognition.
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